NaturaliTea #09: Organic Superior Houjicha

Sipdown!

From the Marco Polo TTB ages ago.

Last time I drank Houjicha was maybe 5 years ago and I remember not liking it as much… yeah that didn’t change. It’s the roastiness that I don’t like?? It legit tastes like you’re eating a mouthful of tanbark, and trust me, I know how tanbark tastes like since once in elementary school I fell of a swing and landed on my face hahaha

Anyway, good tea, but not a fan. If you like a woodsy taste, then this would be your cuppa

From the Here’s Hoping TTB, R5

Kind of bland and sad. It tasted kind of more like a chinese black and green tea blend than a roasted green tea. My first Houjicha was also from Yunomi and it got me throughly hooked, so this was a disappointment.

p.s. – this listing was really confusing to find. There’s a vendor name (Yunomi), a ‘by: NaturaliTea’, and ‘sold by: Matcha Latte Media’. =/

One of my press samples. Decided to try this because I’ve been mostly drinking black teas lately. Since it’s Sunday, I’m also having my own Masterpiece Theater with the adaptation of my favourite Dickens novel (starting a young Harry Potter.) This tea smells so nice, it has that good toasty scent, along with some hints of grain and roast nuts. The roasted, nutty flavour is nice as well. Just what I needed for the cold, windy day.

Thank you to Yunomi for this sample.

I’m often not a huge fan of roasty teas – some are good, but far too often for me the roastiness dominates all the other flavours, and the teas lack nuance.

I was worried about that with this tea, until the end of the first sip. It starts off very roasty tasting, with a slight char note, but then there’s a burst of vegetal tang, and some lovely caramel and cream sweetness. The roastiness almost has a barley quality to it.

This is definitely one of the more complex and enjoyable houjichas I’ve tried. There’s lots going on to prevent it from being one dimensional.

I made a latte with the second steep of my leaves which was delicious – very autumny, like being outdoors amongst the dry, fallen leaves.

The dry leaf is brown and very broken – my sample contained some larger pieces but also lots of fanning sized bits. Dry it smells much like it does steeped – charred and roasty.

The smell was sweet and roasty, very pleasant.
My parameters:
3g/350ml/90°C/30sec/30sec/1min/1,5min/2min
multiple infusions possible
The liquor is golden brown with toasty aromas underpinned with a light sweetness.
The taste:
toasty, very slightly sweet (?), reminds me a little of diluted malt coffee, no bitterness at all.
Houjicha is also great for cold steeping overnight in the refrigerator.

Lewis & Clarke TTB

This is the first of the five samples I took out before sending the box on its way. I’ve tried houjicha once in the past, and didn’t really like it, so I figured I’d give it another chance. The leaf is a mixture of leaf and stem pieces, are they’re a light to medium golden brown in color. Dry scent is roasty and autumn leafy with a surprising amount of sweetness. I let mine steep for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

Once brewed, it’s very roasty-smelling and reminds me of autumn leaves and roasted oolong. There’s not as much sweetness here are there was in the dry. If I’m remembering correctly, this one tastes pretty similar to the other houjicha that I tried. It just tastes like roasted autumn leaves with straw and a little bit of a toasted nut flavor. It’s decent and I’ll finish it, but this isn’t something I would ever need to keep in my cupboard.